Radeon 9800 vs GeForce 8500

M

malpag3

n00b
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Dec 11, 2007
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Hey all, first time posting here. NIfty forum. Glad it's out here...

So I was looking at upgrading my Mobo/CPU/Mem. Low and behold, I stop paying attention to computers for maybe a year or so and come to find out that AGP is no longer really used.

I wasn't planning on upgrading my video card but it looks like I have to.

I currently have a Radeon 9800, not sure if it's pro or not but I paid about $230 for it about 2 or so years ago. I mainly game HL2 type games, interested in running new Quake Wars and Unreal Tournament.

I'm not looking to spend more than $100 on a new card (that can be after rebate) but I found this one on Newegg "MSI NX8500GT-TD512EH GeForce 8500GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16" for around $80.

Is it worth the upgrade? Will I notice a difference? I definitely notice laggy play in fuller servers in CS and HL2. Is that a function of my crappy CPU/Memory, or is that partially my video card?

Is there a decent AGP mobo out there?

Thanks in advance...
 
What is your budget for the new computer? Also, it would not be wise to get an AGP motherboard or graphics card now, AGP is pretty much over.
 
So the choppy game play is probably a result of my CPU/Mem? I'm running a Athlon XP 2000+(1.66ghz) w/ 1gig of budget ram.

In the case that it's probably not my GPU then I want to try to upgrade my Mobo/CPU/Mem. I can't really do that though without having to buy a new GPU.

My budget for the combo upgrade is about $300. What I was looking at was AMD ATHLON 64 X2 4800+ (ADO4800DDBOX) 2.5GHZ on a GIGABYTE MA69G-S3H with CORSAIR 2GB KIT TWIN2X2048-6400C5DHX. This is a bit under budget so that's good.
 
Check out the ASRock boards, you can keep your AGP card and upgrade the rest of your system if you are under a tight budget.
 
The 8500GT is probably better, but not by much. You can get a 7600GT for the same price or less (at least here in the UK), which is about twice as powerful as your 9800 (assuming it is a Pro). Heck, you might even find a 7900GS for that money.

EDIT: Devost8r me to it.
 
To be frank, everything is holding you back in this generation.

I had a setup that was similar to yours:
Athlon XP 3200+ ( 2.2GHz)
1GB of memory
9600 Pro
A7N8X Deluxe motherboard.

In the Doom 3 and F.E.A.R era I wanted more graphics power so I tried out several cards like a 6600GT and X800XT. The X800XT was pretty good, but it still wasn't letting me use all the eye-candy I wanted. However, I still kept it, thinking that this was the gameplay expected of such a card. Then my motherboard started acting screwy approximately a year ago so I upgraded just the motherboard and processor to an AsRock 775Dual-VSTA which let me keep my 1GB of ram and the x800xt as it has both ddr1 and ddr2 slots along with an AGP port and a PCI-Express slot.

I chose an E6300 as the processor because it was the cheapest available. My framerates and overall gameplay experience went up noticeably. I was able to bump up the resolution on F.E.A.R and some other eye-candy settings. There was still some stuttering here and there and gameplay still wasn't buttery smooth. I concluded from this upgrade that the processor was holding me back some, since everything else was the same.

Now this summer, I upgraded the memory on this motherboard from 1GB of DDR to 2GB of DDR2 as prices had collapsed. This was what tipped everything over, F.E.A.R now ran very well at 1280x1024 and I could pretty much max everything out.

Today, F.E.A.R is decidedly last gen, and my system struggles with Crysis. I haven't tried Quake Wars or Unreal, but those aren't as taxing on systems as Crysis, although they look pretty good. To sum it up, if my system was holding back a lowly x800xt, by today's standards, then you won't be doing much of an upgrade while keeping your cpu/memory.

Overall, I think you're going to have to do a completely new build. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to buy new components, but it depends on how long you want this new build to last. If this $300 budget has to last you a couple of years, I would buy a cheap dual core from AMD and an appropriate motherboard, plus the best graphics card I could get my hands on. For example, something along the lines of an AMD dual core brisbane processor that goes for around $50-60 like 4000 X2. As for the motherboards, I don't know much about AMD motherboards so you should head over to the AMD section on [h] and ask which one would be best for you. Then I would suggest a graphics card like the new HD3850 from ATI. It's around $180 plus shipping and tax but it will be WELL worth the money for you. Buy the processor or motherboard open box from a reputable retailer like newegg to save some money, but a decent graphics card is important as today's games are more graphics power limited than processing power limited.
 
Yeah in the OP i say that I am upgrading my CPU/Mobo/Mem and that I apparently need a new GPU because it looks like there aren't any decent Mobo's out there with AGP.

I'm definitely upgrading to AMD ATHLON 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHZ on a GIGABYTE MA69G-S3H with CORSAIR 2GB KIT TWIN2X2048-6400C5DHX

So i think I'm leaning towards the 7900GS now.
 
Check your pm's.
Everything is holding you back. AMD 4800 is a pretty good chip, specially for your budget. IF you go to www.clubit.com you can find DDR2 ram quite cheap. 2GB of DDR800 for $30-40 after rebates :).
 
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